Films & Schedules
- W

WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY

DIRECTOR: Don Hahn - UNITED STATES

Don Hahn's engaging look at the resurgence of the Disney company's animation tradition.

By the mid-1980s, the once mighty Disney Animation Studios were in a slump. Despite a flock of eager and talented young animators, innovation at the studio was held at bay by an old guard of conservative original-era executives. By the end of the 1990s, however, Disney had produced a string of bona fide hits from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to The Lion King. What can account for this turnaround? Director Don Hahn is a 30-year Walt Disney Studios veteran, and his juicy behind-the-scenes tell-all of this transitional period is an encyclopedia of first-hand footage, drawings, and interviews detailing all the in-fights and ego trips, unequivocal failures and soaring successes, tragic lows and elating highs of the Disney renaissance.

WARD NO. 6

DIRECTOR: Aleksandr Gornovsky, Karen Shakhnazarov - RUSSIA

Ward No. 6 is the modern update of Chekhov’s tale of a psych-ward doctor turned patient in his own asylum.

A major box office and critical hit in Russia, and this year’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Ward No. 6 is a bold, modern update of Chekhov’s tale of a psych-ward doctor turned patient in his own asylum. Filming in an actual mental hospital, the directors interview real patients with actors only incidentally wandering in and out of the frame. Used by Chekhov as a metaphor for a man’s disappointment with the promises of science, the story now reconsiders that disappointment as a loss of faith in the nation’s future.

THE WARLORDS

DIRECTOR: Peter Chan Ho-Sun - HONG KONG

Set during the Qing Dynasty, The Warlords tells the story of the rise of General Pang, whose ascent is aided by two bandits who become his blood brothers. Almost inevitably, power breeds greed and hubris, and the brotherhood collapses in a spiral of resentment and betrayal.

“With a cast of thousands, spectacular battle scenes, Shakespearean-style rumination on the corrupting influence of power, and a story of love and loyalty played with dramatic intensity and martial arts fury, The Warlords reigns as the Asian super-production for the new millennium. All revolves around the tragic fate of General Pang (Jet Li), whose noble intention to bring peace and stability to late 19th-century Qing Dynasty China turns into vaunted ambition for personal power and glory. Pang is joined by two bandits who become his sworn blood brothers. Zhao (Andy Lau) and Jiang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) help Pang rise to power, carrying out impossible campaigns for the Qing court, defeating Taiping rebels, and conquering cities. Along the way, Pang becomes attracted to Zhao’s wife (Xu Jinglei), and massacres prisoners whom Zhao had promised to protect. Soon, the brotherhood collapses in a spiral of betrayal and death.”—San Francisco Film Festival.

THE WEDDING SONG

DIRECTOR: Karin Albou - TUNISIA

Set in Tunis during the Nazi occupation, The Wedding Song is the story of the powerful friendship between Nour, a Muslim, and Myriam, a Jew.

Karin Albou returns to the themes of her first film, La Petite Jerusalem (PIFF 30), in The Wedding Song, mapping the intersection of Jewish and Arab cultures and exploring female sexuality. Unfolding against the backdrop of the German occupation of Tunis in 1942, this sensual and sexually frank story centers around two teen friends, Jewish Myriam and Muslim Nour, who have long desired the other’s life. Although far more interested in love than war, both girls find historical circumstances affecting their wedding plans. The occupying Nazis demand “reparation payments” from the Tunisian Jews, which Myriam’s impoverished mother cannot pay. Out of options, she promises Myriam’s hand to wealthy, older doctor Raoul. Meanwhile, Nour is happily betrothed to her handsome cousin Khaled, but her father postpones the wedding until Khaled gets a job. Unfortunately, Khaled finds work with the Germans, helping to round up Tunisian Jews.

WELCOME

DIRECTOR: Philippe Lioret - FRANCE

Welcome tells the story of a young Kurd, Bilal, who aims to swim to England from Calais, and the swimming instructor who agrees to train him for the treacherous crossing.

Managing to be political without being heavy-handed, Welcome focuses on illegal immigrants trying to reach England from Calais, and the risk taken by the French people who help them. Bilal, a 17-year-old Kurdish refugee, left his native Iraq shortly after his girlfriend emigrated to England, and wants to join her. His trek across Europe comes to an abrupt end on the northern coast of France. How to get across the cold English Channel? He decides to head for the local swimming pool to begin training for the swim of his life. There he meets lifeguard Simon, to whom he eventually confides his grand plan. Simon takes Bilal under his wing and secretly teaches him how to do the crawl, despite ongoing threats from the police, who imprison those who aid a growing community nurturing an inextinguishable hope of making a new life in the West.

Selected Filmography: Lost In Transit (93), Don’t Make Trouble (01), The Light (04).

Sponsored by TV5MONDE and with support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

WILD GRASS

DIRECTOR: Alain Resnais - FRANCE

“Resnais delivers a career-crowning masterpiece with this delightful roundelay, based on Christian Gailly’s novel ‘The Incident,’ about the fate-altering ripples triggered by a seemingly ordinary purse snatching. The purse belongs to Marguerite (Sabine Azéma), a dentist who moonlights as an aviatrix. Its contents are retrieved by Georges (André Dussollier), a married man who soon finds himself infatuated with the purse’s owner, even though he hasn’t actually met her yet. Add in a couple of keystone cops, some dizzying aerial acrobatics, and the glorious camerawork of cinematographer Eric Gautier and you have the recipe for a uniquely playful meditation on coincidence and desire that suggests Resnais, at age 87, is truly in his prime.”—New York Film Festival.

THE WILD HUNT

DIRECTOR: Alexandre Franchi - CANADA

Love, identity, and role-playing games all come together in this meshing of myth and reality. A man enters a LARP (Live Action Role Playing) game to find his girlfriend, who has left him for the game. His refusal to role-play angers the dedicated players and sets fantasy and reality on a collision course, capturing the potentially dangerous intersection of actual and made-up worlds.

In a dark forest, a battle is brewing between the power-hungry Celts, the rampaging Vikings, the secretive wood elves, and a mysterious shaman who is about to unleash his latest fiendish scheme. Clever, funny, and intense, The Wild Hunt is set in the fantasy-reality of a large role-playing game, and the plot mirrors the legend behind the game. Erik goes looking for his girlfriend, Evelyn, who has left him for the game. He will need the help of his brother Bjorn, who happens to be the Viking leader and owner of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Erik’s entry into the game angers the dedicated players when he refuses to role-play, setting fantasy and reality on a collision course. Capturing the potentially dangerous intersection of actual and made-up worlds, Franchi’s film is a timely, potent comment on the modern yearning for ritual and the consuming nature of adopting another identity.

First Feature Film.

Best Canadian First Feature Film, Toronto International Film Festival.

THE WIND JOURNEYS

DIRECTOR: Ciro Guerra - COLOMBIA

Ignacio Carrillo, a retired musician, journeys to return his supposedly cursed accordion to his old teacher. Along the way, he picks up a teenage boy who dreams of becoming a wandering musician like Ignacio. This touching odd-couple story mixes the evocative landscapes of Colombia with the magic of its music to tell a timeless tale.

Ignacio Carrillo, old and retired, has spent his life traveling through the villages of Northern Colombia playing traditional songs on his accordion, a legendary instrument that was said to be cursed because it had supposedly been won in a musical duel with the devil himself. When his wife suddenly dies, he bitterly vows to never play again and decides to make one last journey—to return the accordion to the man who gave it to him, his teacher and mentor. Setting out on his donkey, he is set upon by a young teenager with romantic dreams of becoming a nomadic minstrel like Ignacio. Reluctant to take him along, Ignacio relents, but in the course of their journey tries to convince him that the life of a minstrel can only lead to solitude and sadness. This touching odd-couple story mixes the evocative landscapes of Colombia with the magic of its music to tell a timeless tale.

Filmography: The Wandering Shadows (02).

This year’s Colombian submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

THE WINDOW

DIRECTOR: Buddhadeb Dasgupta - INDIA

A simple act of generosity sends a young man on a picaresque journey through a frightening netherworld of crime and weirdness in this evocative tale.

Bimal and Meera are a young Kolkata couple, very much in love and on the verge of getting married. But Bimal has an idealistic streak that jeopardizes their bliss. On a visit to his old school, he sees how it has fallen into disrepair and decides to donate a new, handcrafted window to replace the now decrepit one from which he gazed as a boy. It seems like a simple act of generosity, but in Dasgupta’s Bengal, generosity can seed chaos. Soon, he is lost in a picaresque netherworld of petty crime and mystical visions. “Window showcases Dasgupta’s striking imagery and sense of place, but still more impressive is his delightful, seamless mesh of the magical with the realistic, the slapstick with the ethereal, and romance with global economics.”—Telluride Film Festival.

Selected Filmography: Distance (78), Crossroads (81), The Return (86), Their Story (92), The Shelter of the Wings (93), A Tale of a Naughty Girl (02), Chased by Dreams (04), Memories in the Mist (05), The Voyeurs (07).

WOMAN WITHOUT PIANO

DIRECTOR: Javier Rebollo - SPAIN

Woman Without Piano is a quietly comic look at a Madrid housewife's attempt to escape from her mundane and tedious existence.

Plain, middle-aged Rosa is a married woman with no friends and no social life. She has devoted her life to her family and doesn’t seem to think much of herself. But when night falls, she enters a fun, dark, and absurd new world. With her husband Francisco tucked in bed, Rosa (Spanish TV superstar Carmen Machi, recently seen in Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces) sneaks out to meet a young Polish construction worker at the bus station, instigating a provocative tour of nocturnal Madrid: neon-lit hotels, all-night bars, and dingy launderettes. Rebollo creates a fascinating, disquieting work in which “anything might happen, and the film—winner of the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Best Director award—holds the viewer in thrall by a chain of extraordinarily staged sequences fueled by a visual command and wit that honors the cinema of Jacques Tati, Otar Iosseliani, and Fellini.”—AFI Fest.